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Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh

How do you mark with prestige and elegance the 20th birthday of the most influential and important company in the history of the microcomputer? For 20 years, Apple had the will and motivation to create a new design rather than a new computer. The designers, with Jonathan Ive at their head describe the principal design features as beautiful, refined, with few cables and efficiency, and most important, wicked fast.

Spartacus, the computer of the 20 year old Apple, overflows with new ideas that are all different from previous models. The mouse is a trackpad, as to limit clutter and space, the trackpad could be removed from the keyboard, if a user felt so inspired, thanks to a cable that lays nested inside the keyboard. The base of the computer is big enough to allow for the entire keyboard to be slipped under for storage, not unlike the iMac G5. Additionally, the base can be used as a handle for the computer.

The printer, modem and keyboard cables are all hidden behind the machines in grooves in which they are nested, to avoid the cluttering and tangling of cables. A button on the front will automatically change the computer from television mode to computer mode. The transformer and the subwoofer are in a single case, that use one cable to provide power and sound to the machine.

The result is reminiscent of a Bang and Olufsen product, with all the qualities of a computer and hi-fi system. Its price, 50,000 francs at introduction (eventually dropping to 25,000 francs at its discontinuation). The machine can easily command thousands of francs, even today.

Comments

The keyboard storage idea traces back at least to the original Amiga design. On the Amiga the keyboard cable is coiled and goes under the machine and out the front so that when the kbd is stowed no cabes is in the way. Of course they went so far to design that, and then the mouse/joystick ports are on the right front corner... But hey, that's Amiga for you.

i want it to have my children! you know that comment from the hackers movie. well im saying it now. this is a beautiful computer and though its very strange and different, thats how i am and how i like my macs.

The TAM is one of the few Macs of that era that I haven't owned. But there is a warning from Woz, who is someone I take seriously. His warning stated that the TAM was limited to a 4gig volume and anything higher would lead to "sudden death." Again, I have no personal or direct experience with a TAM but if Woz's assertion is true, it would make installation of X problematic (or more problematic considering it's a 603e and a RAM max of 128).

The TAM is one of the few Macs of that era that I haven't owned. But there is a warning from Woz, who is someone I take seriously. His warning stated that the TAM was limited to a 4gig volume and anything higher would lead to "sudden death." Again, I have no personal or direct experience with a TAM but if Woz's assertion is true, it would make installation of X problematic (or more problematic considering it's a 603e and a RAM max of 128).

Now that info prompts some interesting questions. Is it a design flaw or intentional? You know, like when iTunes came out, Apple coded it to work in OS9 but not OS8.6. A simple hack made iTunes available to 8.6 but the intention was obvious. What would be the point of crippling the TAM, if that's the case?

Now that info prompts some interesting questions. Is it a design flaw or intentional? You know, like when iTunes came out, Apple coded it to work in OS9 but not OS8.6. A simple hack made iTunes available to 8.6 but the intention was obvious. What would be the point of crippling the TAM, if that's the case?

I'm not even sure if the 4 GB problem exists. I've never actually heard of it happening. I can't actually think of anything that would cause a hardware failure. Perhaps it messes up the firmware or because at the time maybe 4 GB+ drives used more power than the TAM outputs? If anyone has had their TAM die because of this, please post it here or contact me at . I'd be very interested in adding it to my TAM page (http://www.forcedperfect.net/tam/)

The TAM is one of the few Macs of that era that I haven't owned. But there is a warning from Woz, who is someone I take seriously. His warning stated that the TAM was limited to a 4gig volume and anything higher would lead to "sudden death." Again, I have no personal or direct experience with a TAM but if Woz's assertion is true, it would make installation of X problematic (or more problematic considering it's a 603e and a RAM max of 128).

Hello William,
it is not a phisical limit, you can have also a big hd, but you do partage it in more volumes. I've 4 volumes on my 15gb hd on my Sparty.
For the ram and the system, I don't know exactly...
in the next future I will try to put two 128mb memory modules, but I fear he can't utilize modules larger than 64MB...
and for OsX, also if the hack-firmware etc, XPostfacto if I remenber, is now ready, 256mb I think is the minimum, sob!
sorry for my english, I'm italian...
ciao!
Rossella

Personally, I really don't see what the big hoopla is. It's not much more than a laptop stretched apart with speakers and a subwoofer. Give a Powermac 6500--which came out at the same time--an LCD and side speakers and you've got the same thing, except the 6500 is better with two PCI slots (TAM=1), a 4GB hard drive (TAM=2GB), 12x CD drive (TAM=4x), built-in zip drive (TAM=0), and a mouse (I'll take a mouse over a trackpad any day). And a remote! Did the TAM have a remote? Maybe it did, but I don't see what's so radically different about it.

Otherwise, the TAM seems to have an awkward, overly tall design, but I've never actually encountered one. Yes, it reduces the cabling in a couple clever ways, but I'll take a very well designed computer desk which solves the cabling mess instead and leaves room for options.

What the TAM does have is the one thing that always makes most men salivate--a gray-to-black sleek covering. Whether it's your honey in black stockings or a very dark gray Mercedes, that color says sex and power. That's the allure. That's also the fantasy of the future--a world of sleek grays and blacks. Look at science fictions films of the future--"Farhenheit 451," "Gattica," etc. It's always a sleek world of totalitarian grays, blacks, and whites. Apple quickly dumped thinking different in colors. White, gray, and on very special occasions, black--that's what Apple has become since the G4 and OS X--the image at least, of sex and power. The reality? Well...a demoted 6500 in a gray case with a laptop monitor. Groundbreaking? How so? What if it were beige? The original price of a 250mhz TAM--$10,000 which included its being delivered to your home in a limousine and setup for you by a man in a tuxedo. Price of the 250mhz 6500--$2,099, sans limo and penguin, but I'm sure you could have arranged for that for another $8,000.

How often has Apple used the "wicked fast" epithet? I think the first time was the Mac IIfx. Wasn't there another time before the TAM too? Oh look, here it is being used for the Yikes! PCI Graphics G4--that computer was so "wicked" it lasted in production, two months?

Sorry, I guess I'm in a bad mood today.

What are the other two pics of a computer in this article? Other design variations that weren't chosen? I think I like those designs better.

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